Until the Bitter End
by HecateA
Summary: Lily Evans does not give up. Lily Evans does not stop. This cold Halloween night will be no exception. Oneshot.


**Author's note: **Wanted to write and post this on Halloween, but here we are. What are we mad about? Lily Evans' portrayal in the movie that showed her saying goodbye to Harry instead of scrambling to save her son until the very end! How are we fixing this? Fanfiction!

**Disclaimer: **The following characters belong to J.K. Rowling, and this story derives from her original works, storylines, and world. Please do not sue me, I can barely pay tuition.

**Hogwarts: **Assignment #9, Survival Studies, Task #2, Write about being unable to escape

**Warnings: **Canon death/violence

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**Until the Bitter End**

For a moment she leaned in the living room doorway, her heart glowing as Harry giggled. James' face joined him in mock joy at the puffs of smoke and colour erupting from his wand.

"Hi," James said. "Who's that, Harry? Is that Mama?"

"Mama," Harry echoed, clumsily pivoting towards her. He proceeded to try and eat his fist, a favourite hobby.

"That's right, my sweet boy," she said. She crouched down and ran a hand through Harry's somehow already messy hair, even if he'd _just _gotten a bath and a brush. "Are we nearly ready for bedtime?"

"I tried tuckering him out," James explains. "But I think I may have just gotten him way more excited. Hard to tell. Maybe we should run a marathon with him, maybe that's how you exhaust a one-year-old.."

"I would rather snog a troll," Lily said with a grin.

"Will you settle for me? I mean…" he flashed his wedding ring and wiggled his eyebrows. "You already have…"

She laughed and kissed James, a quick peck on the lips. "We're still listening to that radio show and eating all that Halloween candy Remus brought later, right?"

"Right," James said. "Do you want help putting the baby to bed?"

"No, I'm okay," Lily said. She got up and James handed off Harry. She propped him on her hip and had him wave James goodnight. He did it on his own soon—he was getting very good at waving. Her husband grinned and got up, throwing his wand onto the couch to stretch. She smiled at him from the staircase before bringing Harry upstairs and heading into his nursery.

He babbled at her pretty much nonstop as she changed his diaper for the night and tried to grab her hair with those flailing, windmilling arms of his. Another new hobby, this one slightly less cute though she did like watching Sirius smile through the pain of this.

"My oh my, we have lots to say tonight," Lily cooed back. She blew a raspberry on his tummy and sent Harry into a fit of giggles that didn't help her button up his blue pajamas, the ones with the Snitches moving across the fabric.

That was when she heard it—when she heard the door open and James screaming.

"Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off—"

Her blood chilled and her stomach fell. But her world only ended when she heard what came next.

"_Avada Kedavra!" _

Then there was a thump—and she instinctively knew what it was even if it could have been anybody, any_thing, _any…

She screamed before she could help herself—she screamed and then scooped Harry up against her chest. Her eyes darted towards the nursery door. Her wand. Her wand wasn't here, she didn't have it on her—who carried wands in their own houses? Where had she left it? Was it even upstairs, was it in the bedroom? Had she left it downstairs, or, or…

It didn't matter. If she got out of the house, went to Peter's or Sirius and Remus' or anywhere in the world, it would be fine, she wouldn't have to do this alone and Harry would have as many wands defending him as he needed…

She grabbed a blanket to keep Harry warm and then prepared to Apparate, even if it wasn't quite safe to Apparate with a baby as young as Harry. But something blocked her. Something blocked her—it was as if she was running into a wall, as if the pull she usually felt couldn't sink into her skin and take her away as it usually did.

There were wards around the house, wards she and James hadn't put there, wards that were keeping her in instead of keeping an enemy out and…

She slammed the nursery door when she heard the first staircase creek under what sounded like a particularly heavy footstep.

Trapped, she was trapped. If she left the nursery, she would run into him. If she stayed in…

The footsteps kept creaking. They kept coming closer.

Sometimes, James told her that if he spent too much time in his Animagus form he got skittish. It was the stag's instincts taking over and kicking in, and when it happened he felt like prey. Lily had never understood the flood of joy and freedom that James' Animagus form brought him, but she understood _that, _now.

"Shh," Lily said when the baby started whimpering in her arms. "Shh, shh, we're okay…"

She hauled the rocking chair and everything that she could find, everything that could be moved, outside her door.

She heard laughing. Laughing outside, which was nearly worse than everything else that she'd heard so far, but didn't stop moving. She didn't because she wouldn't, she refused to, and she couldn't. The baby in her arms deserved an escape, deserved to make it through tonight and a thousand others, deserved… oh God, hopefully she could give him everything he deserved.

"Shh, Harry, shhh…" Lily said. "Mama's here, I'm here… Until the end, love."

She was just about to haul the crib across the door when she heard the doorknob turn and the hinges creak as it opened. She turned around and there he was, as pale and eerie as the last time she'd faced him—Merlin, maybe even less human… and this time, James wasn't at her side. She didn't even have a wand. She couldn't do much as he pushed the hood off his bald head and waved his hand, casting aside the barricade she'd tried to build. It looked pathetic, now that she saw it next to him and witnessed how easily crumbled. But now that it was gone, there was just Lily.

Lily, who couldn't leave.

Lily, who hadn't left the house in months.

Lily, who now wouldn't.

She kissed the top of Harry's head one last time before dropping him in the cot, and throwing her arms aside.

"Not Harry, not Harry," she said, shaking her head. "Please not Harry!"

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**Stacked with: **MC4A; Shipping Wars; Hogwarts

**Individual Challenge(s): **Black Ribbon; Black Ribbon Redux; Small Fry; Gryffindor MC (x3); Slytherin MC; Brush; Fall Leaves; Seeds; Old Shoes; Themes & Things (Family); Themes & Things B (Survival); Themes & Things C (Blanket); Advice From the Mug; Ethnic & Present; Tiny Terror; Rian-Russo Inversion; In a Flash; Yellow Ribbon; Yellow Ribbon Redux

**Word Count: **1000

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_**Shipping Wars**_

**Ship (Team): **James Potter/Lily Evans (Patronus Pair)

**List (Prompt): **Fall Micro 2 (Sacrifice)


End file.
